In the last decades we’ve made major strides in heart attack prevention through the use of blood pressure medications, smoking cessation, and statins – a family of cholesterol-lowering medications that have been proven to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Despite these advances, heart attacks remain the leading cause of death in the US. New medications to further decrease heart attack risk are being eagerly sought.
Allow me a brief digression to explain three important fat molecules in your bl...
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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study Criticized by Patients
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” –attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among others
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is an illness marked by chronic disabling fatigue that is not explained by another diagnosis. Other symptoms such as non-refreshing sleep, subjective memory impairment, tender lymph nodes, and joint or muscle pain may be present. The cause of CFS remains unknown, and no consistently eff...
Sitting Won’t Kill You, Except on Train Tracks
In the last couple of weeks the media has published stories making it sound like your Ikea chair is a death trap waiting to assist your suicide through the dangerous activity of sitting down. Stories with sensational titles like “Is Sitting a Lethal Activity?” (see link below) make you think that you’re better off walking outside for a smoke. Let’s spend a few minutes sifting the solid science from the wacky conjecture. You might as well sit down for this.
The media interest in the idea that si...
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Surgery Might Save Lives in Early Prostate Cancer
Last week’s post, “Armadillos Transmit Leprosy to Humans”, generated much positive feedback, which I appreciated. You all clearly enjoy stories featuring cute mammals and very little serious science or health implications. I did my best to find a story like that this week, but the closest thing I found was that SEALs cause penetrating head trauma to a few particularly nasty humans.
But there was an important study this week about prostate cancer. My regular readers know that one of the controve...
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